This is by far the worst software I have ever bought. It's buggy and it locks up my computer. I upgraded to the latest version, that didn't help. I have very little tolerance for people make and sell buggy software and expect the user to be the debugger. Imaging buying a car and have to fix it everytime you drive it? This is entirly irresponsible on Stentec's part. Not only it wastes my money but my time as well. Don't they have any respect for customers' time?

I repeatedly asked for a refund and my requests were completely ignored. They don't even have the courtesy to return my email!!!

I can't tell you how unhappy with Stentec I am and I urge everyone who have been the sucker to tell their friends not to do business with such an unscrupulous company.

Dear poster, there can be many things that make Sail Simulator not run on your computer. Unfortunately we cannot test Sail Simulator on every configuration possible.

We first would like to make sure if you can fix the problems with updates and/or driver updates, but unfortunately this does not seem the case on your pc. Your purchase has been refunded last monday february 5th.

But I understand how someone can be crazy, after paying a software and cant use it properly.

I am sorry for you that it did not work at your computer .

It runs smooth and soft at mine and I really enjoy it .

Stentec's simulators have the BEST PHYSICS (behaviour and interaction of boats, sails, engines, weather and sea etc..) you can have. Also the best land formation which allows users to create real world locations with precise object positioning.

However they are offering very limited variety of boats....and when you see Virtual Skipper, Virtual Sailor and Ship Simulator, Stentec's graphics and 3D modeling of boats and environments are not the best.

Anyway the software absolutely does not deserve this hard post. But you are 100% right about the unanswered posts and late replys

Sail Simulator does seem to have become too out of date with not enough updates, but it is still usable for some.

I stopped using it myself for a good few months with the computer locking up when changing the settings for time, waves, etc.
That at present sems to have rectified iteself, for some unknown reason, but no longer trust it.

As many computers being bought now have Vista preinstalled I have doubts whether it will now still run on it at all.
As I said before I mentioned on ship sim 2006 forum about the demo for it and "apparently" it would not run on Vista when one member of the forum tried it. I also mentioned to him about making it compatible to windows 95/98 assuming this is available in Vista), and he posted again to say it still would not work.

So I would not be able to recommend it to anyone else.

Whether this was due to the configuration of his computer, or due to compatibility problems in Vista or in the demo I have no idea.

So I will work on the assumption that it WILL NOT RUN on Vista, unless advised otherwise by Stentec, or by a forum member.

I do not have Vista at present but will have when I get a new computer later this year. This may also mean that the scenery and dem editor may not work as they are 4.5 years old I think?
Which in turn means I may have little further interest in the simulators until the new scenery editor mentioned appears (eventually).

The motorboat simulator does seem to run OK so that "might" have a better chance of running on Vista as I think it was based on direct.x 8 and the sailsim is based on direct.x 7.
The new sailsim is I think to be based on direct.x 9.
I don't think there is much out at present for direct.x 10.
Incidentally regarding the motorboat simulator that also has problems for me as the wave function decided to stop at times, then restarts, but the animated wave texture still appears to work on flat sea.

Maybe an open source simulator will become available some day and in the meantime will carry on with Blender. and explore the animation functions a bit further.